Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
4, 2014
M.C. Kiran
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Kalpataru Institute of Technology,
Tiptur, 572202, KA, India
Email: 20.kiranmc@gmail.com
1 Introduction
The term shock is inferred differently in biology and medicine than in engineering; in its
engineering sense, shock is defined as a non-periodic excitation characterised by
suddenness and severity. Engineering shocks are often experienced by vehicle riders
when their vehicle negotiates speed control hump even at moderate speed. Some
researchers have shown that speed control humps effectively reduce vehicle speed and
accident frequency (Webster and Mackie, 1996). However, they are the most effective
traffic calming devices currently available and are likely to be in common use for some
time (Kjemtrup, 1990).
In the past few decades, plenty of experimental methods and mathematical models
have been developed on the basis of diverse field measurements to describe the
biodynamic responses of human being. The biodynamic response of the human body
exposed to vibration have been invariably characterised by measurement of force motion
relationship at the point of entry of vibration to-the-body response function and
transmission of vibration to different body segments through-the body response
function. Considering that the human body is a complex biological system,
to-the-body response function is conveniently characterised through non-invasive
measurements at the driving point alone (Liang and Chiang, 2006). Levison and Harrah
(1971) conducted experiment on 12 human subjects to study biodynamic responses for
both harmonic, random vibration incentives of magnitude below 4 m/s2 and vibration
environment was supplied by a large amplitude multi-degree of freedom (DOF) hydraulic
vibration platform. Studies of Griffin (1990) describe methods to measure and evaluate
human responses exposed to whole-body vibration and shock in terms of seat
transmissibility and seat effective amplitude transmissibility using accelerometer.
Experiments conducted on seven male subjects by Boileau and Rakheja (1998) using
whole body vehicular vibration simulator for three levels of sinusoidal and random
excitations respectively swept in the frequency range of 0.62510 Hz evaluated
biodynamic responses such as seat to head transmissibility (STHT), driving point
mechanical impedance (DPMI) and apparent mass (APMS). Ji et al. (2008) experimented
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on five male subjects to evaluate random road incentive and acceleration at different
body segments using random vibration experimental table SA30-S802/ST. Simulations
were carried out to validate experimental results using ADAMS/LIFEMOD.
Mandapuram et al. (2012) investigated for APMS and STHT response functions of the
seated human body under whole-body vibration exposed to fore-aft (x), lateral (y) and
vertical (z) applied individually and simultaneously. The experiments were performed
with nine adult male subjects over a rigid seat and a steering column installed on a
six-DOF whole-body vibration simulator. A tri-axial force plate (Kistler 9281C) served
as the seat pan and another force plate, fabricated using three three-axis force sensors
(Kistler 9317B), to measure the biodynamic responses to single and uncorrelated
three-axis vibration with and without hands and back support under different magnitudes
of random vibration in the 0.520 Hz frequency range.
Various mathematical biodynamic models have been developed to depict human
motion from single-DOF to multi-DOF. These models can be divided as distributed
(finite element) models (Alphin and Sankaranarayanasamy, 2011), lumped parameter
models and multi-body models (Tan and Przekwas, 2011). The lumped parameter models
consider the human body as several rigid bodies and spring-dampers. This type of model
is simple to analyse and easy to validate with experiments (Liang and Chiang, 2006).
However, limitation to one-directional analysis makes this system both advantageous and
disadvantageous depending on the purpose of investigation. Coermann (1962) measured
the driving-point impedance of the human body and suggested one-DOF model. Suggs
et al. (1969) developed a two-DOF human body as a damped spring-mass system to build
a standardised vehicle seat testing procedure. Boileau and Rakheja (1998) used an
optimisation procedure to establish a four-DOF human model based on test data.
From the literature, it can be seen that most of the researchers devoted their
study over harmonic and random vehicular vibration by performing experiments and
simulation. These studies indicate that most of the experiments performed for whole body
vibration are in laboratory conditions. The focus of this paper is to extend these studies
for real-life impact condition and also establish the validity of mathematical model for
impact condition. A standard speed control hump has been utilised in this experimental
study, over which a motorcycle rider negotiates. It is intended to assess the acceleration at
seat-buttock interface and head of the subject due to the impact force experienced
negotiating standard speed control hump using Shimmer accelerometer. To compare
obtained experimental results, a four-DOF lumped parameter model is simulated using
Dirac delta as input function in MATLAB/SIMULINK to quantify the instantaneous
effects of mechanical shocks in terms of bio-dynamic response. Transmissibility of
acceleration through the body, APMS and DPMI responses are also computed.
2 Experiment
Experimental flow of the present study involves selection of healthy subjects for the
experiment followed by measuring device selection and mounting. Procedure to perform
experiments and data acquisition is also explained in this section.
Evaluation of bio-dynamic responses of human body subjected to impacts 313
2.1 Subjects
Four healthy human subjects (mean SD; age: 23 2 years and weight: 55 5 Kg) took
part in the experiment. Detailed instructions were given to the subjects prior to the
experiment. Subjects with valid driving license participated in the study and were asked
to wear safety helmets during the task. All the subjects gave their written consent to
participate in the experiment.
The accelerometers mounted on to the subject are shown in Figure 1. One accelerometer
is mounted on the back of the neck and the other accelerometer at the subjects
seat-buttock interface respectively.
2.3 Procedure
Prior to data collection, subjects were given a practice trial to become familiar with the
task to be performed in the experiment. In this task, the subject was asked to ride a
motorcycle over a speed hump (LSS RHL-65) at approximately 20 kilometres per hour
and to maintain a comfortable riding posture. The speed hump was located at a distance
of approximately 100 metres from the starting point. After effective number of trails,
subjects were made to ride a motorcycle negotiating standard speed control hump and
data were recorded using Shimmer accelerometer.
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3 Simulation
The impact forces or the shocks are the non-periodic functions which are experienced
while traversing over speed hump. Similar non-periodic forcing environment is
created to simulate four-DOF bio-dynamic human model using unit impulse function.
The unit impulse, also known as the Dirac delta function and is defined mathematically
as,
(t a ) = 0 for t a (5)
(t a)dt = 1
(6)
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4 Biodynamic responses
Therefore,
APMS = M + M nor (9)
where H(j) is the complex STHT or seat to upper torso transmissibility (STUTT) or seat
to lower torso transmissibility (STLTT) or seat to thigh transmissibility (STTT), the
response acceleration ai(j) measured at the head or upper torso or lower torso or thighs
of seated occupant, and a(j) is the acceleration response at the driving point.
F( f )
Z( f ) = (11)
v( f )
where Z(f) is the impedance defined as resistance to motion to input excitation from
different source when a structure is subjected to excitation, in this case it is due to rider
negotiating a standard speed control hump.
Figure 3 Traces produced at head as motorcycle rider negotiates speed control hump (see online
version for colours)
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This agreement between simulated and experimental results allows us to proceed for the
evaluation of biodynamic responses from Boileau and Rakhejas four-DOF model for the
impact force experienced negotiating standard speed control hump.
Figure 4 Frequency response plot of APMS obtained from simulation (see online version
for colours)
Figure 5 Transmissibility obtained from simulation, (a) seat to head transmissibility (b) seat to
upper torso transmissibility (c) seat to lower torso transmissibility (d) seat to thigh
transmissibility (see online version for colours)
(a)
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Figure 5 Transmissibility obtained from simulation, (a) seat to head transmissibility (b) seat to
upper torso transmissibility (c) seat to lower torso transmissibility (d) seat to thigh
transmissibility (continued) (see online version for colours)
(b)
(c)
Evaluation of bio-dynamic responses of human body subjected to impacts 321
Figure 5 Transmissibility obtained from simulation, (a) seat to head transmissibility (b) seat to
upper torso transmissibility (c) seat to lower torso transmissibility (d) seat to thigh
transmissibility (continued) (see online version for colours)
(d)
Figure 6 Frequency response plot of DPMI obtained from simulation (see online version
for colours)
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6 Conclusions
A study on the biodynamic responses of seated human subjects exposed impacts due to
speed humps was carried out experimentally using Shimmer accelerometer and
simulation using four-DOF human model. Peak accelerations from experiments and
simulation studies are in good agreement, which infer the validity of mathematical
model for impact conditions. Human body segments can absorb certain amount of
acceleration and in present study acceleration absorbed by the human body is in a range
of 5 to 7 m/s2. High sensitivity of the human body is observed over a frequency range of
5 to 7 Hz.
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